The Back of The Napkin
Solving Problems and Selling Ideas With Pictures
Interview with Dan Roam
author, THE BACK OF THE NAPKIN, now available from Penguin Portfolio
It is amazing how often great ideas start on a scratch piece of paper or on the back of a napkin. My old boss still has the napkin and drawing of a new concept he recently developed. It earned him a huge promotion! He has it posted on a cork board in his office. You can bet it represents more than just one idea. It is a constant reminder of what innovation can bring!
So much of our success in sales comes from the way we think, communicate, and connect with our customers. I had a chance to catch up with author Dan Roam and asked him a few questions about his new book, The Back Of The Napkin. Here's how it went...
Doyle: What is visual thinking?
Dan: Visual thinking is solving problems with pictures. It means taking advantage of our innate ability to see -- both with our eyes and with our mind's eye -- in order to discover, develop, and share ideas quickly and intuitively. Think of visual thinking like playing a game of poker: first you LOOK at your cards, then you SEE the patterns they contain, then you IMAGINE how to manipulate those patterns in order to make them better, then you SHOW your result to everybody else. (And hopefully win!) Now apply that same 4-step process to all problem-solving. That's real visual thinking.
Doyle: What inspired you to develop this concept?
Dan: I've always been someone who drew. When I started my career as a graphic designer, that made me normal, since all designers draw. But when I loved into business management and management consulting, it made me weird, since *nobody* in business draws. Which always struck me as peculiar, since every time I started drawing in a meeting, it was as if magic suddenly took place: people paid an extraordinary amount of attention and became truly engaged in what I was conveying.
Doyle: How can sales professionals use visual thinking to be more successful?
Dan: Nothing makes for more powerful sales presentation than throwing away the PowerPoint and instead pulling out a sheet of paper and saying, "Do you mind if I show you what I'm thinking about?" then sketching a simple diagram of where your product/service/offering fits within your customer's world. You know you've won the sale the moment the other person takes the pen and adds something to the picture. Now you're both working together to solve the problem... and your sale is guaranteed.
Doyle: Tell us about your new book, The Back of the Napkin.
Dan: My book is unique in the world of business publishing: it's a "how-to" problem solving guide that provides simple tools and rules for how to approach any business challenge from a visual perspective, regardless of your ability to draw. It's available everywhere (online and brick-and-mortar) and is doing really well. Reviews are great and the media loves it -- because let's face it: everybody likes to look at an insightful picture.
Want to see it in action?!!! Watch an animated version of an hour's worth of live "solving problems with pictures" as a podcast on the VizThink Blog.
Website: www.thebackofthenapkin.com
Blog: www.digitalroam.typepad.com
Buy it on Amazon: The Back Of The Napkin
Share your thoughts and experiences! It's your turn to comment on these questions...
What great ideas have you, or someone you know, come up with that began on the back of a napkin?
What visual techniques do you use to successfully engage your clients during a meeting or presentation?
Interview with Dan Roam
author, THE BACK OF THE NAPKIN, now available from Penguin Portfolio
It is amazing how often great ideas start on a scratch piece of paper or on the back of a napkin. My old boss still has the napkin and drawing of a new concept he recently developed. It earned him a huge promotion! He has it posted on a cork board in his office. You can bet it represents more than just one idea. It is a constant reminder of what innovation can bring!
So much of our success in sales comes from the way we think, communicate, and connect with our customers. I had a chance to catch up with author Dan Roam and asked him a few questions about his new book, The Back Of The Napkin. Here's how it went...
Doyle: What is visual thinking?
Dan: Visual thinking is solving problems with pictures. It means taking advantage of our innate ability to see -- both with our eyes and with our mind's eye -- in order to discover, develop, and share ideas quickly and intuitively. Think of visual thinking like playing a game of poker: first you LOOK at your cards, then you SEE the patterns they contain, then you IMAGINE how to manipulate those patterns in order to make them better, then you SHOW your result to everybody else. (And hopefully win!) Now apply that same 4-step process to all problem-solving. That's real visual thinking.
Doyle: What inspired you to develop this concept?
Dan: I've always been someone who drew. When I started my career as a graphic designer, that made me normal, since all designers draw. But when I loved into business management and management consulting, it made me weird, since *nobody* in business draws. Which always struck me as peculiar, since every time I started drawing in a meeting, it was as if magic suddenly took place: people paid an extraordinary amount of attention and became truly engaged in what I was conveying.
Doyle: How can sales professionals use visual thinking to be more successful?
Dan: Nothing makes for more powerful sales presentation than throwing away the PowerPoint and instead pulling out a sheet of paper and saying, "Do you mind if I show you what I'm thinking about?" then sketching a simple diagram of where your product/service/offering fits within your customer's world. You know you've won the sale the moment the other person takes the pen and adds something to the picture. Now you're both working together to solve the problem... and your sale is guaranteed.
Doyle: Tell us about your new book, The Back of the Napkin.
Dan: My book is unique in the world of business publishing: it's a "how-to" problem solving guide that provides simple tools and rules for how to approach any business challenge from a visual perspective, regardless of your ability to draw. It's available everywhere (online and brick-and-mortar) and is doing really well. Reviews are great and the media loves it -- because let's face it: everybody likes to look at an insightful picture.
Want to see it in action?!!! Watch an animated version of an hour's worth of live "solving problems with pictures" as a podcast on the VizThink Blog.
Website: www.thebackofthenapkin.com
Blog: www.digitalroam.typepad.com
Buy it on Amazon: The Back Of The Napkin
Share your thoughts and experiences! It's your turn to comment on these questions...
What great ideas have you, or someone you know, come up with that began on the back of a napkin?
What visual techniques do you use to successfully engage your clients during a meeting or presentation?
I love when DAN ROAM stated that drawing made him normal. I am very much a visual thinker and often need to draw everything not to close sales but to see it clearly. In the foreword of the book of Ezekiel in the Maxwell Leadership Bible, leadership expert John Maxwell states that Ezekiel was a leader who "Sees it Clearly, Shows it Creatively and Says it constantly!"
Reply to this
I strongly identify with the thoughts expressed in this article - I spent close to 8 years living in Japan and would often share ideas and bounce around business solutions with my Japanese colleagues via the most rudimentary of flipcharts, the paper sleeve that wrapped our chopsticks!
Small ideas could be developed by carefully tearing open the wrapper; team based ideas created by the use of three or four such wrappers!
The simple expediency of using what was available and drawing simple pictures to express complex ideas worked to the benefit of my colleagues and myself, but perhaps most importantly to the clients who were later to become the recipients of our latest creative brainstorming!
Reply to this
I've been using this technique for the last couple of years to "de-mystify" IT Networks and phone systems. The response is amazing from business owners and leaders who are overwhelmed by IT and think that IT is over their heads. A myth spun by insecure IT people.
Reply to this
We often use diagrams and drawings when explaining our processes and how they produce the customer's desired results. But the most fun is when after closely listening for the prospect's dominate buying motive I describe a picture in which they see themselves enjoying the very thing they desire as a result of using our programs.
Reply to this